Huge Hong Kong rally after student dies and lawmakers arrested

HONG KONG: Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers packed into Tamar Park on Saturday (Nov 9) night as police arrested a group of lawmakers, deepening the city's political crisis.

The protesters sang hymns and carried flowers, while many shouted "revenge", a call heard increasingly often at rallies and given added impetus since a student died in hospital on Friday after falling from multi-storey park during a protest.

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Alex Chow Tsz-lok, 22, a student at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology (UST), fell on Monday as protesters were being dispersed by police.

The international finance hub has been upended by five months of huge and increasingly violent protests, but Beijing has refused to give in to most of the movement's demands.

People attend a prayer rally in Hong Kong's Tamar Park on Nov 9, 2019, in memory of a student who died from injuries sustained during a fall as police skirmished with demonstrators. (Photo: AFP/Philip FONG)

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"Tonight we are not only here to mourn for him but to show the government, the Chinese Communist Party and the world that the things that have happened in the last six months have not been forgotten," said Tom, 26, a government worker who asked that only his first name be used.

The huge rally – one of the few in recent months to obtain police approval – means Hong Kong has witnessed 24 weekends of protest in what has become the most profound challenge to Beijing's rule since the 1997 handover.

People attend a prayer rally in Hong Kong's Tamar Park on Nov 9, 2019, in memory of a student who died from injuries sustained during a fall as police skirmished with demonstrators. (Photo: AFP/Philip FONG)

Many at the peaceful and sombre rally wore black.

"I want an independent inquiry because that proves Hong Kong is still a place with rule of law," a 35-year-old woman, who gave her surname Wong, told AFP, echoing the movement's core demand for an investigation into police tactics.

Wong, who said she moved to Hong Kong from the mainland three years ago, said she also wanted to see less confrontational tactics from hardcore protesters.

The charges relate to chaotic scenes that broke out within a legislative committee in May as lawmakers tried to stop a controversial Bill being discussed that would allow extraditions to authoritarian mainland China.

At the time, city leader Carrie Lam was fast-tracking the Bill through the legislature, a move that ignited record-breaking street protests in which millions marched.

"The protests that have been going on for five months are yet to finish but the government is already launching massive arrests of pro-democracy legislators in collaboration with the police," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

Hong Kong's legislature is quasi-democratic, with half the seats popularly elected and the rest chosen by largely pro-Beijing committees, ensuring the chamber remains stacked with government loyalists.

Opposition to the government comes in the form of a small band of lawmakers who win their seats in local elections.